Happy New Year everyone! Here is my list of tentative, possibly achievable goals for 2010.
1. Research school options for child related careers and/or invest a ton of time, money and energy into daycare. I truly love kids and no matter what the pay scale, I know that it is something that I will be happy doing with my life. When you work with kids, you know that what you doing is really making a difference in our world - you are helping to create the next generation! And the smile of child has to be one of the purest things that life has to offer. I really want to try and find the right path for me into helping kids in the best way that I can.
2. Keep my Jeep clean. I know that this one is almost certainly headed for the 2010 Fail list BUT...I think it important that I give it a try. I feel like less of an adult when I open the back hatch and pop cans fall out. I am thirty years old, I should be able to put all my groceries in the back without having to juggle five coats, a set of golf clubs, seven books, about 23 different types of windshield scrapers, empty large, McDonald's Diet Coke (caffeine free!) cups, and a partridge in a pear tree. In 2009 I did manage to keep the front two seats and, for the most part, the back seat clean. I even consistently had a trash can...however it was too small to fit more than one of the aforementioned Diet Coke cups. If I can master the cargo portion of the vehicle I may be able to call myself an adult by this time next year. I am thinking of creating a laundry basket sorting system back there....
3. Ignore Brad for at least 75% of the year. This is a pretty attainable goal. I think I ignored him for a good 50% of this year, so I am just building on my previous good work. This sounds heartless, but here's the deal. Brad has crossed a very dirty, morally blurry line....and I am 95% sure that he is never coming back across again. Now, because I am Pollyanna I am going to leave that 5% loophole open in the hopes that he will realize what he is doing to himself....and that is also why I am going to give myself a 25% leeway to be there if he truly needs me. That is just the girl that I am. But for my own sanity, and because I hate to see him the way he is now....75% of this year will be Brad-free.
4. Use my elliptical machine. Notice that this goal is very flexible, very loosely worded. I don't like to set rules that I know I am going to break. My elliptical machine and I go through spurts where we are friends and when we are bitter enemies and when we are hooks to dry sweaters on.....actually that last part is just me. So the goal is purely.....get on the machine. Make it worth the money that I spent on it. Be healthy so that I can one day play tag with my grand kids. Provided that I have kids of course. This part is also important because Jen and I want to be polka-dancing, drinking Busias together when we are old. Thus I need prodigy to call me Busia. But that is a goal for a whole other year.
5. Blog daily and update my status twice daily so that everyone knows everything about my life. Ok - that one is purely a joke. Don't rush to delete me from your friends.
6. Be patient. I am so impatient sometimes for what tomorrow may bring that I am afraid I am going to miss all the stupendousness (spellcheck insists that this isn't a word. I respectfully disagree) that is today. I think that a lot of this is from being single. It is easy to feel like life is going to pass you by if you don't pair up and procreate - and being divorced just ups that pressure more because now I have to fall in love and marry twice while all my smarter friends are only having to do it once in the same time period. But I need to have faith that God has a plan for me. And it will all happen when it is supposed to, with or without my impatience. I might as well enjoy the ride.
With that said, this is my mantra for 2010, brought to you by the book of Jeremiah:
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.....you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."
When I am impatient and trying too hard to make a future appear now, on my time table....this is what brings me back to earth. Faith that God has a plan for me. That He has put things in my path that have purpose...for me, or for others...and that if I keep the hope that He has given me, all will unfold exactly as it should, exactly when it should. All I need to do is keep the faith.
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Inconsistent Blogger...Thy Name is.....Me.
So the holidays are not the best time for my mental clarity. (On a brief side note, the 'C' key on my computer is wacky today, so I apologize in advance for any missing 'C's) Holidays mess with my brain in so many ways that I really should consider taking an extended vacation through the majority of December just for the sake of mental health. Part of this is, of course, divorce related. And some of it is just my personal neurosis being taunted by all the holiday cliches.
The thing about the holidays post divorce that bug me aren't the things that most people would think. I actually sincerely believe that holidays are much, much easier as a single than as a couple. Holidays as a couple, at least in my experience, involve so much compromise that some years I really felt like everyone got what they wanted for Christmas - but Brad and I. We were always on this strict time schedule to make sure that no family members felt neglected that we barely had a minute for ourselves. We, more often than not, exchanged Christmas presents at six in the morning on Christmas Day after our alarm blared us awake so we could make present opening at my mom's for seven, dinner at one, and Busia's house at four. And this was after a Christmas party the night before at his families followed my midnight Mass. No, the things I miss about a married Christmas have nothing to do with actual 'couple time'. Here is what I miss. Being in the middle of a crazy family or work party and looking up to catch his eye over some inside joke. Whether it be a remark that we can't believe someone just said or an accident that almost happened when a young cousin almost undercut an uncle as she ran blindly down the hall in a fit of Christmas glee and sugar. Those moments are the ones that make me feel like I am really divorced. Those moments are sneaky. You don't even see them coming, which makes them dangerous.
My personality also does not lend itself to stable holiday mental health. I am a bit of a control freak - and it seems to be getting worse with age unfortunately. I am sure that a shrink could tell me all about how losing control of my marriage has made me cling for control in the rest of my life - but I will just save myself the three hundred bucks and admit it. I own it. I know it is true. Yet, some days it does still get the better of me. In any situation, I need to be able to know the outcome. I want to have planned out how it is going to work, I want to know all the details of the progression, and I want everyone to unequivocally accept my opinion and direction as all knowing. This does not happen often. During the holidays, this happens even less, if that is possible. There are always five hundred people(maybe a bit of an exaggeration) trying to organize or plan or execute something - and I always just know the very best way to do it if they would just listen! And yes, I know how that sounds, thus why I list it as one of my flaws....I am self aware, but accepting.
I am also a bit over the top. I tend to throw myself into situations head first and then wallow in them. Case in point - Christmas decorations. I have enough decorations to decorate a house twice this size - and last year I dragged them all out, making our home a little snowman shrine. I also brought home a huge, live tree that took up a majority of our living room and shorted out the lights because I insisted on lighting every branch on the tree. The living room became the 'walkway between the front door and the kitchen', not the 'living room' because there was no room for actual living. I follow this same train of thought when it comes to shopping, baking, and Christmas cards. I always want to do the most that I can - which is pretty much impossible and can only lead to guilt fueled ingesting of cut out cookies and fudge. It's an ugly circle. This year I am trying to reduce the stress - I don't even have a tree yet! It remains to be seen how successful I am.
So between the post-divorce psychosis and my control-freak-all-or-nothing personality, I tend to not be at my best for constructing timely, amusing posts. Forgive me, pray for my sanity, and - if I don't make it - eat a tree shaped, bedazzled cut out cookie in my honor.
The thing about the holidays post divorce that bug me aren't the things that most people would think. I actually sincerely believe that holidays are much, much easier as a single than as a couple. Holidays as a couple, at least in my experience, involve so much compromise that some years I really felt like everyone got what they wanted for Christmas - but Brad and I. We were always on this strict time schedule to make sure that no family members felt neglected that we barely had a minute for ourselves. We, more often than not, exchanged Christmas presents at six in the morning on Christmas Day after our alarm blared us awake so we could make present opening at my mom's for seven, dinner at one, and Busia's house at four. And this was after a Christmas party the night before at his families followed my midnight Mass. No, the things I miss about a married Christmas have nothing to do with actual 'couple time'. Here is what I miss. Being in the middle of a crazy family or work party and looking up to catch his eye over some inside joke. Whether it be a remark that we can't believe someone just said or an accident that almost happened when a young cousin almost undercut an uncle as she ran blindly down the hall in a fit of Christmas glee and sugar. Those moments are the ones that make me feel like I am really divorced. Those moments are sneaky. You don't even see them coming, which makes them dangerous.
My personality also does not lend itself to stable holiday mental health. I am a bit of a control freak - and it seems to be getting worse with age unfortunately. I am sure that a shrink could tell me all about how losing control of my marriage has made me cling for control in the rest of my life - but I will just save myself the three hundred bucks and admit it. I own it. I know it is true. Yet, some days it does still get the better of me. In any situation, I need to be able to know the outcome. I want to have planned out how it is going to work, I want to know all the details of the progression, and I want everyone to unequivocally accept my opinion and direction as all knowing. This does not happen often. During the holidays, this happens even less, if that is possible. There are always five hundred people(maybe a bit of an exaggeration) trying to organize or plan or execute something - and I always just know the very best way to do it if they would just listen! And yes, I know how that sounds, thus why I list it as one of my flaws....I am self aware, but accepting.
I am also a bit over the top. I tend to throw myself into situations head first and then wallow in them. Case in point - Christmas decorations. I have enough decorations to decorate a house twice this size - and last year I dragged them all out, making our home a little snowman shrine. I also brought home a huge, live tree that took up a majority of our living room and shorted out the lights because I insisted on lighting every branch on the tree. The living room became the 'walkway between the front door and the kitchen', not the 'living room' because there was no room for actual living. I follow this same train of thought when it comes to shopping, baking, and Christmas cards. I always want to do the most that I can - which is pretty much impossible and can only lead to guilt fueled ingesting of cut out cookies and fudge. It's an ugly circle. This year I am trying to reduce the stress - I don't even have a tree yet! It remains to be seen how successful I am.
So between the post-divorce psychosis and my control-freak-all-or-nothing personality, I tend to not be at my best for constructing timely, amusing posts. Forgive me, pray for my sanity, and - if I don't make it - eat a tree shaped, bedazzled cut out cookie in my honor.
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